George Kessler designed Dallas as a city of majesty, but hit roadblocks

Dallas brags about its frontier roots and free-wheeling wildcatter spirit, yet at the beginning of the 20th century its best architecture and planning came from the businesslike Midwest.

The Adolphus hotel, with its fanciful beer bottle tower, was designed by Barnett, Haynes & Barnett of St. Louis, as was the neo-Gothic Kirby Building across the street. Sparkling Union Station was inspired by the 1893 Columbian, or "White City," Exposition in Chicago., and Dallas' first and most ambitious master plan was drafted by Kansas City landscape architect George Kessler, a disciple of the renowned Frederick Law Olmsted, and a passionate City Beautiful advocate.

Kessler came to Dallas in 1910 at the invitation of the City Plan and Improvement League, a fledgling civic group headed by Dallas Morning News publisher George Bannerman Dealey.

Kessler had already produced a master plan for Fair Park in 1904, but that was a snap compared to the challenges he faced the second time around. Dallas was a planning disaster, "from a civic point of view the most slovenly community in the United States," fumed one League member.

The Trinity River flooded almost every year and in 1908 had inundated downtown, drowning several people and destroying hundreds of houses and businesses. Its streets were raw, dirty and crisscrossed with railroad tracks; there were no boulevards, parks or other public amenities - no public realm of any kind, for that matter. The time had come for professional planning, and the Improvement League concluded that George Kessler was the man for the job. German heritage

Kessler was born in Germany in 1862 but grew up in Dallas. When he decided to study landscape architecture, he returned to Germany for several years, then accepted a planning job in Kansas City, where he later designed one of the finest urban park and boulevard systems in the country. At the time of his death in 1923, he had created similar plans for Memphis, Cincinnati, Denver and a dozen other American cities.

Kessler was a rare combination of pragmatist and visionary, skilled at solving complex engineering problems yet also capable of creating magisterial plans that recast ugly, and chaotic American cities into idealized forms reminiscent of the great capitals of Europe.

Symmetry, order, proportion, long axial vistas terminating in monumental civic buildings - these were the staples of City Beautiful planning. A walk in the city should not be an ordeal, a kind of penance, but an education in art, architecture, history, nature and citizenship.

In his plan, published in 1912, Kessler addressed Dallas' flooding problems by proposing massive earthen levees along the Trinity. He also recommended eliminating all railroad tracks on downtown streets and consolidating freight and passenger traffic in one central location instead of scattered at five.

At the same time, he urged Dallas leaders to look beyond the crises of the moment to imagine what their city could be 25 or 50 years in the future.

"There is not a single thing in this city that you cannot do if you make up your mind that you need it and will have it," he told them. Kessler conceived of cities as works of art, and, with that in mind presented Dallas a bold plan for boulevards, parks, plazas and gateways that would give it some of the elegance and refinement of London and Paris.

The boulevards would form a loose ring around the city's core. One connected downtown with Turtle Creek, running along both banks to the new street car suburb of Highland Park. A second linked downtown and Fair Park, while a third paralleled Mill Creek - now buried - as it flowed from roughly Mockingbird Lane and Southern Methodist University to Old City Park and the Trinity. A fourth looped through Oak Cliff and West Dallas.

A new train station on the western edge of downtown would become the centerpiece of a civic gateway "to make the first impression of Dallas as pleasing as possible." Surrounded by plazas, fountains and sculpture, it would stand on an axis with a new civic center to the east containing a City Hall, library, post office and other significant public buildings. City Efficient

It was a grand plan worthy of an aspiring city. Unfortunately, Kessler presented it just as the City Beautiful was contracting into the City Efficient, in which economy, utility and next year's tax rate trumped concern for the big picture and the long view. Ideas that had been welcomed as enlightened a few years earlier were now dismissed as impractical and extravagant. Sweeping change became mere expediency.

The project to remove the downtown railroad tracks ended in 1923, but the Trinity levees were not completed until for another 15 years later. Union Station, designed by Chicago architect Jarvis Hunt, opened in 1916, yet the only evidence of Kessler's majestic gateway is Ferris Plaza, a tiny square of trees, grass and a fountains at the intersection of Young and Houston streets. The one boulevard constructed was Turtle Creek, and then just between Maple and Preston Road. Dallas is still waiting for a Fair Park link and has forgotten Mill Creek.

The civic center, a staple of City Beautiful planning, finally arrived 65 years later in the form of a thrusting cantilevered City Hall by I.M. Pei, a foursquare public library by F&S Partners and assorted additions to the Dallas Convention Center. City Hall Plaza has City Beautiful grandeur, yet the entire complex is on an axis with nothing in particular.

The failure to implement most of Kessler's recommendations foreshadowed a century of hit-and-miss planning in which Dallas commissioned half a dozen master plans and officially adopted none. Kessler believed in bold, almost imperial plans supported by a collective civic will.

Dallas - then and now - cared far more about individual property rights, leading eventually to a city with hundreds of special-interest planned developments but no overall vision of what it wants to be.

It is tempting to speculate what Kessler would make of 21st-century Dallas, in which downtown has become just one of many commercial centers and vast amounts of land are devoted to freeways and parking lots. He was a pre-sprawl planner focused on connection and concentration rather than dispersion. Kessler and today

He would surely decry the shortage of parks and public space, yet likely endorse efforts to reclaim the Trinity River - minus the tollway. He would probably also applaud the Arts District - so many monumental buildings on one long axis! - while shaking his head at its slapdash landscaping. DART rail would surely get his vote, and South Dallas might no longer be, in essence, a separate city.

Daniel Burnham, architect of the famous 1909 Plan for Chicago and leader of the City Beautiful movement, challenged cities to "make no little plans [for] they have no magic to stir men's blood. Make big plans &#x2026; remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die."

George Edward Kessler, his contemporary and fellow traveler, would endorse every word, except perhaps the last few.

Editor's note: David Dillon was the former architecture critic for The Morning News. He died Thursday. This was the last story he wrote for the newspaper. AN EARLY VISION FOR DOWNTOWN DALLAS

Key points of George Kessler's plan published in 1912:

1. Build massive earth levees along the Trinity River to prevent flooding.WHAT HAPPENED: Trinity levees were not completed until 1938.

2. Eliminate railroad tracks constricting downtown streets and consolidate freight and passenger traffic into one central location. Build a new train station on the western edge of downtown that would become the centerpiece of a civic gateway.Surround it with plazas, fountains and sculpture to stand on an axis with a new civic center to the east containing a City Hall, library, post office and other public buildings.WHAT HAPPENED: Union Station opened in 1916. Pacific Avenue railroad tracks and others downtown tracks were removed by 1923.Ferris Plaza, a tiny square of trees, grass and a fountain at Young and Houston streets, is the only evidence of Kessler's gateway. The civic center arrived 65 years later with a City Hall, a public library and assorted additions to the Dallas Convention Center.

3. Create boulevards, parks, plazas and gateways in a ring around the city's core.Connect downtown with Turtle Creek (see plans below and photo to the right), via a boulevard running along both banks to Highland Park.A second would link downtown and Fair Park. Another boulevard would parallel Mill Creek (now buried) from about Mockingbird Lane and Southern Methodist University to Old City Park and the Trinity.The fourth boulevard would loop through Oak Cliff and West Dallas.WHAT HAPPENED: Turtle Creek was the only boulevard constructed, and then just between Maple and Preston Road.

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